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Heat.
The slow slap of the waves scooping away the masses of sand, the lingering burn on his cheek, the taste of blood and bile on his tongue.
The world is a blur abound him. A fierce, pounding ache germinates behind his eyes, intensified with the violent beat of his fever. He groans, feeling a numbness spill from his face to the ends of his toes. His muscles spasm and groggily return to life.
He opens his eyes.
It is night. The stars are stitched sharp and bright on the black webbing of the sky.
His chest is bare. His dark hair has escaped his ponytail and sticks like dry mat to his forehead. He is shivering, his teeth chattering despite the humidity, sweat a clammy cling that settles under his belly where the remains of his uniform lay ratted and in rags. A reel of bandage has been secured neatly under his armpit and across his breast.
A thin trail of white pierced agony runs down his side. He groans, sucks in two, three deep breaths. Rolls over, and peels back the bloodied bandages.
Brown, crude stitches line his side, poked in and out of scabbing flesh.
His stomach rolls. He grunts; grits his teeth.
The island is a silent scape of sand. Behind it is a swollen mass of trees, green and deep with pines shooting to the sky.
He seems to be lying in a makeshift camp. Next to him a fire, voluminous and full, crackles and gasps and explodes in miniature sparks. Above it is a spit where fish have been skewered and left to cook.
A man comes skulking over the sands. He’s squat across the shoulders, burly and built in his arms, cowhide like skin and brown hair bleached the colour of almonds. His eyes are blue and brilliant and soften beneath the yellow moon.
He kneels beside the man, lying down the wooden spikes crowding his arms. Stuck upon them are different type of fish, limp and fresh with cooling scales.
A hand is laid across his brow. He shudders with the contact.
The man’s voice is sinfully gentle.
“Captain Javert, how are you feeling?”
Javert’s mouth twists. He spits at the man and turns away.
.
His dreams are powered by fever.
There are ships with white sails billowing like the unfurling wings of heavenly doves. In front, a smaller vessel speeded forward by the power of the devil, grey sails aloft and away. The seas churn and shriek in the wake of a beckoning storm, but over the howl of the wind and the crash of the salt spray in his hair, Javert spies his man from over the gape of the tide that rises and drowns in beastly sprays of white surf.
Someone begs him to turn back.
But he can’t, he won’t, this man has made a mockery of the righteous, has graced the halls of his Majesty, has held compassionate value in court and kissed the crucifix of the saviour, all the while with eyes dark and corrupt like dark water.
This man, who taken into custody once more, has now escaped again…!
Waves batter and break through. Wood splinters and shatters. The ship in front is swallowed by a sudden, powerful rush of ocean that crashes over the side and consumes the Lady Maria in one swift bout.
Javert is thrown off guard, then thrown overboard as a torrent of sea rises to claim him, dragging him off and over and then down deep.
There is a tear in his side, licking agony over his body, and a string of bubbles come screaming from his gaping mouth.
His eyes burn, his lungs burn, his ribs burn, and…
.
“Do you have nothing to say to me, Captain?”
Valjean (Officer Madeliene, Captain Favre, all these names, all these aliases, but he knows better he has always known better) places his hands on his knees and smiles. It is mild and unassuming and irritatingly powerful.
“I have nothing,” Javert’s voice is coarse; has long gone unused. “To say to a convict.” His lip twitches. “And to a pirate.”
“A Christian privateer.”
“A dog may call himself a cat. A wolf can hide within the skin of a sheep. It is still the same stinking beast, despite what it calls or cloaks itself in.”
Valjean sighs, and he expects the man to swear and strike back, but instead he hums beneath his breath and reaches for a fish with blackened crisp for skin.
“It is good to see you returned to your senses, Javert.”
“Captain…” Javert scrambles up. Rage is a puncture in his pride. “It’s Captain Javert to you.”
“Of course, Captain,” Valjean nods appreciatively. It’s not unlike attempting to appease an ill tempered child, and Javert’s lip curls again. “You are, after all, still a Captain. Even without a ship.”
“As even without your chain and cap,” Javert hisses back. “You are still a criminal.”
Valjean’s hand pauses at the end of the skewer.
“In your mind, Captain,” He says carefully, quietly; the first hint of danger. “Only in your mind.”
He gets to his feet. His salt breeched shirt hangs loose on his bones, and Javert narrows his eyes. The man in his memory was fuller in the chest, healthier and weightier. As Valjean ambles away, still fingering the tips of the makeshift spear, Javert once again looks at the wound in his side. It is scabbed, and while still painful, is half healed, the stitches dissolving.
He looks across to the figure fading away over the sands, and frowns.
.
Officer Madeleine is a good man, an upright man. A little soft and silly in the head perhaps, too keen to be manipulated by the grabbing and gormless masses. But a good man, a righteous man, a pious Christian and not a slave to the devils of drink.
But a man he has none the less disgraced.
Rumours are petty evils that belong in the mouths and minds of idiotic giggling maids, not in the calm and rational hand of the law. And he, Captain Javert, who’d headed the ships of His Majesty in the name of culling corruption in the seas and hung more scallywags then an Italian puppeteer, had been the one to exasperate such hateful slander. Slander that could have put the man in public and professional disarray. To liken such a great man to the bare horrors of an escaped prisoner…!
If he had noticed the generous brow darken, he’d thought it was down to his own stupidity. If he’d noted the huge hands shake and fidget, then surely it was a sign of his disgust at Javert’s shameless daring. But Madeleine spoke to him in kind, even admiring tones. Do not fret yourself, Javert. You did your honour bound duty and should be proud. You are a good man and I wish for you to remain in your service to King and Country.
If Madeleine had been an amusing enigma before, to Javert for that instant (even if the fool did not understand, could barely comprehend…) he seemed to radiate a pure, foolish goodness that tightened the muscles in his cheeks, made his fingers flex and his toes curl, made his eyes sheen with the barest touch of moisture.
That guileless fool.
Madeleine had insisted on shaking his hand, even as Javert condemned himself a spy and a traitor. But Madeleine’s grip was warm and strong, and Javert curled his fingers around his wrist and gritted his teeth as the other man, intentional or not, seemed to shiver.
.
.
“Javert, please.”
He’s forgotten the “Captain” again. Javert is aware of a red mist dawning on his sight, of the world becoming sick and dizzying and far away. The sea, sun and sky mesh in an ugly pastel crush of sense and smell.
“Javert, please. You must drink. You must.”
There is water being pressed to his chapped lips. On reflex, he opens and swallows. A sudden stab of rationality demands him to check if such substance is in fact salt water, that will poison and dry out his kidneys, but the water is pure and lukewarm and quietens the drums in his head.
“You weren’t like this before,” He can’t make sense of Valjean’s words, which skitter on the brink of his coconsciousness. “You were up, you were speaking and…”
One of the days (one of the many, endless, blue skied days) Valjean spends gone. He has wondered into the patch of trees he fancies as a forest, and Javert sidles behind him, hiding in the shadows of the branches.
Valjean picks at small frogs, barely bigger than his littlest finger, and harvests them in pint sized jars. Each one a volatile colour, sickly green and poisonous purple and cherry red.
“Planning to poison me?” he heckles, craning out his hands toward Valjean, which to his eyes, resemble claws. He is suddenly made anxious, made greedy, at the prospect of not having the man within a distance he can easily invade.
He recalls a time, long ago, when Valjean’s cheeks were smooth and his eyes were alive, but he’d trembled and toiled beneath the law. And Javert, barely a scout, had patrolled the prisons checking the double barrelled hinges on the cages and that eyes and souls remained vacant and without rebellion, before he’d spied the young man through the bars.
Valjean had been robust and virile and dangerous. He spoke little and due to his hulking build had been feared by the other men. But Javert, he had to learn to fear Javert, as the others soon did, and it filled Javert with righteous pride to have this animal lower his eyes at his arrival. Then, back there…! Javert had power, Javert had influence, and Javert had this man within the walls of his prison.
And yet, he had escaped…!
“I would not poison you, Javert,” Valjean opens the jar and lets the frogs; wet, plump little devils, leap to freedom. “This is merely a pastime I indulged as a child. Being here, I…”
“Quiet.” Javert, his mind running from him, huddles his fingers into the gape of Valjean’s shirt. The stitches pull and fray, already weak from over wear. “You talk too much, Valjean.”
Indeed, that is untrue. It is Javert who has gibbered like a fool, it is Javert who has barked orders and muttered and squawked, everything about his lost duties to his missing snuff box to his mother and the cracks in her powder, about any single madness that has swarm, without inhibition or sense, to his addled mind.
The small snatch of trees is beside a tiny brook. The frogs, perilous little blighters, plop into the shallow green, their sodden croaks rising a rusty chuckle from Javert’s throat.
“Captain…” Valjean, the fool, the damn fool, is trying to appease him now with sweet tempered tone and the use of his rightful title. “You are not…”
“I am fine, I am right!” He scowls, slipping his thumbs beneath the half hung collar. “I am not in need of your nannying.”
.
“I do not need your fuss,” Javert can’t count the days. There are several craters of ashes and bones and the shiny fleck of rotting fish scales dotting the beach, marking the landscape like churches across the French countryside. And on his body too, marks and bruises and bite-marks, as if a calligrapher has sketched on him as he has dwelt in hazy sleep. His wound, fast becoming a scar, is imbued with a dull ache that smacks of maturity.
The looks Valjean grants him are worrisome. He holds Javert’s hips, his legs, his head as he slumbers. Javert flinches away from each fumbling attempt at touch, but in his mind they become caresses as he scans the contours and visualises the warm patches of Valjean’s shape beneath the baggy shirt and ruined breeches. It’s as if trying to sustain a sensation from a dream.
Valjean leaves him be. At times Javert is struck with a purely ignorant clarity, and at others the sickness in his brain rattles unknowable things that reside in locked boxes in his mind. He becomes slowly aware of having attained a heat, somewhere, somehow, that wasn’t from the sun.
In his memory, Javert burns, and Valjean leaves him be.
.
When he wakes, he is sick with heat. The sun has set and breezes in a humid, moonless night. Valjean embarks to the beach once more, where Javert is suddenly made aware of the vast and lonely sands between them and so he swears and scrabbles after his companion. Washed on the shores are two long, thick sticks, which Valjean sharpens into points, his back to Javert and his hands large and busy. Javert, half chuckling, seizes one of the completed spears on the floor and holds its edge to the crown of Valjean’s neck.
Valjean turns, his half-finished work still in his hand; the branches hit and click together.
When they practice duelling, it is in the comfort of the flickering sprites of a building fire. Blood and rum flows, until Javert can’t tell what is which and a serious practice fight becomes a clumsy dance. Valjean shows his training he acquired under the guise of Officer Madeleine, but the rough and earthy brawling of his past stems the fluidity of his technique, drains him of poise and footwork, and Javert, despite the storm in his temples, is able to drag Valjean to his knees.
Valjean breathes heavily, fingers curled into the black sand, knees drawn up slightly. Javert towers over him, his makeshift sword studying the thin tie on the fabric tatters of Valjean’s trouser. The night is cinereous, rich with dark magic and so beautiful in its ghastly murk he could spoon it into a jar.
He smirks; drops the stick, exhaustion rushing like a dropped anchor to his limbs, and he crumbles on the sand and stone and dryly retches.
Valjean is suddenly there, a steadying hand on his back. Javert forgets to shrug it away.
His nostrils pinch at the strong ordure of rum and bile.
.
“Did we drink rum?”
Valjean is distant now. His limp, an impediment to his sturdy walk, has begun to fully subside.
“Some washed up,” He answers quietly. He chips away at yet another spear, and Javert theorises that it has become somewhat of a nervous habit. “We drank it. It was a safe alternative to water, until you found the brook.”
“I found the brook?”
“Yes, you were swimming in it.”
“I see.”
He tries to manufacture the scene in his mind (and how obscene, the thought of him bathing in a jungle spring) but instead he stares at how the muscles in Valjean’s arms churn with each work of his hands.
“Hm. Amusing story, Valjean.” He kicks back and smirks. “I despise the devil’s drink.”
Valjean’s eye glitter.
“You didn’t then.”
.
In his dreams, he’s been on the island before.
Madeleine and Favre and Valjean shake beneath him, hands splayed and sinking into sand made moist and heavy by the ocean. There is feverous sweat weeping from Javert’s forehead, his skin red with tanning just beginning to crack through, his own hands clamped to the hips of the man beneath him. He is in pain, but it is drowsy and edged off and he can’t care for it, certainly not now, not with hellish heat wrapped around him and the bite and curse of the man below him.
Air becomes a stranger. His eyes roll to the back of his head and he is aware of his muscles cramping, his body slumping, and there is somebody crying out his name, but then –
.
Javert waits. The day, humidly tedious, draws to a close. Valjean prepares their supper on yet another fire, another forming crater in their little island.
Javert closes his fingers around Valjean’s wrist.
“How long?” He reaches forward; he’s fully mobile now. The wound strains and he exclaims beneath his breath, but he holds onto the scruffy cuff of Valjean none the less. “How long have we been here?”
Valjean looks away. His hair is wild and white gold beneath the sun. The sun has spotted and dyed his flesh a deep tertiary colour that further defines the strong jut of his jaw.
“Six weeks.”
“What?” Javert’s grip is iron. His attention drifts to his own hand, which is thin and bony and strapped with hard, nut browned skin. “I was out cold for six weeks?”
“No,” Valjean cradles his head in his hands. The inside of his eyes glimmer. “No, you were unconscious for three days.”
Javert releases Valjean. He flops back, the stones scraping up his legs, the wound no longer a grinding distraction.
“How could I have been?” He’s choked. He licks his lips in nervous habit. Valjean’s eyes follow the movement of his tongue. “How could I have been?”
“You were feverish,” Valjean starts to speak quickly, words tumbling and tripping over one another, his garble becoming a low level drone in Javert’s ears. “You were feverish, you wouldn’t settle. I found you losing consciousness clinging to wood scrap, I managed to grab you, drag you ashore…you were bleeding badly, tendrils of red in the water, I was terrified you would attract sharks…I thought you were dead, but you spat blood and kicked me and rolled in and out of a faint…but your strength didn’t falter, and you managed to stay awake…you talked nonsense but you were strong, moving about, carrying wood and barking at me about how to start a fire. I attended to your wounds and you let me, even if you struggled and ripped the stitching more than once…”
Javert waits for the world to upend, for the rattled tangles of his mind to unknot once more into colour and sensation and merciful darkness. But his mind remains sharp, the world around him cruelly defined in pin prick definition.
“There’s more,” he hisses. “There must be.”
Valjean starts. He swallows. Then he breathes deep, and out.
“No.” He shakes his head. “No. There was nothing else.”
The beach collides into Valjean’s back. Javert’s hands, above Valjean’s chest but not quite at this throat, slam him down further into the sand. His hips chaff against Valjean’s upper thighs.
“Lair,” Spit flies from his teeth. Valjean shivers; parts his mouth, closes his eyes. The submission boils Javert’s blood, and his fingernails twitch and scrabble at Valjean’s collarbone, cutting into skin and drawing blood. When he speaks again, his voice has become guttural, ferocious. “You know.”
“You know,” Valjean whispers, weak and odd and tender. “I think you remember now.”
Javert shifts his hands up, up, lingering at the pulse of Valjean’s artery in his neck.
“You fool,” He draws his face close to Valjean’s, tasting the man’s breath. “You’re a fool, Valjean.”
He laughs, wishing to conjure up the fever, wishing to have it fry and flare his blood once more into insanity. Valjean, the great illusive convict, the fake Officer, the charitable maverick privateer, shrinks beneath this loud and abrasive sound.
“Oh well,” He grins down at Valjean, teeth naked and large and white, curling his fists back into his shirt. He has a sudden desire to rip it, to allow the sun to bake down at the faded scars of the lash, to the flesh, to the memory made fresh and raw between them. “I did say I’d take you in the end.”
“Javert…” Valjean lifts his hand; tries to touch Javert’s cheek. “Javert, I’m sorry, I…”
Javert catches Valjean’s hand, curling his fingers around his knuckles. He must look like a beast possessed, body wasted away to primal muscle and sun flecked skin, powered by mad and lustful elements. No longer any control, no longer the veil of composure to throttle man’s vital, ugly essence.
“You’re a fool, Valjean,” he repeats. His grin is bitter. “You are a fool.”
.
They see patched sails billow on the sea. They unfurl and expand like the raggedy wings of a parting gull, and Javert knows it is Valjean’s crew, knows it is the stolen ship the Lady Maria made base and raw by her handling at delinquent hands. Salt water spreads and breaks to permit her through; the foam shivers beneath the mighty bow, light catching beneath the last fraying embers of the setting sun.
The woman who leaves the ship to pick her way over to them has gold hair cropped short to her head, false finery hanging from her thin wrists and tiny ears. Clutched to her hip is a wild scrap of a child, made pretty by ribbons tied in her auburn curls and clothes that wouldn’t be ill fitting on the pampered fledglings of the aristocracy.
Valjean goes out to meet her. She checks him over, and Javert watches them harder then, but Valjean feverously embraces the child and the kiss he lies to Fantine’s cheek is chaste and familial.
She wanders over to Javert. There is trepidation in her face, even if he is merely nothing now but a vulture with clipped wings.
“We have sent word,” She stinks of salt laced with perfume. “Your men shall be here within a few hours.”
Valjean’s hand on her shoulder is a sign for her to retreat, and she wobbles back to the ship, siren girl one again latched to her bosom. Over her skinny shoulder, the child watches him. Her eyes are huge, deep, ink black.
“Not yours, then,” he murmurs to a hovering Valjean.
“I love her as mine.”
“That is typical of you.”
“Will you not come with me?” A plea.
Javert scoffs. He thumbs his hair, which is loose and long down his back, a matted mess.
“I shall proceed to do what is typical of me.”
“Javert…”
Javert snarls.
“I will let you go, do you hear me? I shall give you a day to run. Use those hours wisely, Valjean, for I am not a generous man. And that thing…” He catches Valjean’s wrist in a sudden, crude slap of skin on skin. Beneath his grip, Valjean seems to burn. “…which shared this island with you, that forsake rationale and decency, was nothing more than an illusion brought on by the gouge in my side and the destruction it wrought on my character. Do not think…”
Valjean has taken a step forward, has leant in slightly; his hand twitches.
“If you touch me,” Javert’s words descend into a hiss. “I shall bite your tongue and spit your blood onto the sand.”
“Captain,” Fantine’s voice is a weak stutter on the breeze. “Captain, we must leave.”
Javert turns his back. It is a few minutes before there is the sound of crunching sand dwindling away to the roar of the shore and the rip of the wind. When Javert looks back, the sky is darkening; the sun, a swollen orange ball, sets beyond the flat line of the horizon and sends bloody streaks into the ocean.
Somewhere in the distance there is a vague, vanishing shape, but it could be the foam shivering on high tide or the glint of the sun off a bird’s wing, for when he looks again, there is nothing.
That night a thin mist settles on the sea, weaving the water with powdery tulle. The moon sways like a galleon on the ghostly blur of the clouds, as the rim of the horizon topples off into nothingness.
The remains of the last fire smoulders slowly into ashes. The foam licks away at his toes. Javert reaches under his shirt and ghosts the scar tissue that rises like a fleshy vapour from his skin. The sky reaches around and above and locks him in a warm, dusky, empty half globe.
Folklore once dictated that if one could sail, and sail long, they would drop off the edge of the world.
On the sand Javert imagines the blotted dry crust of the blood bitten from Valjean’s tongue if he’d kissed him, and if he had never chosen to leave.